Interviews

Sunken Cages is the solo-project of Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin, this project is presented on Friday 19 at the Suoni Per Il Popolo.

«  Inspired by Mumbai’s Street drumming ensembles and global rhythms, he creates danceable tracks using live-looped percussion arrangements and pre-composed melodies. In the past, he has worked as a sideman with a wide array of musicians including US Jazz legend Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre (AACM/Chicago) and pop-star Shakira. He led Trio Tarana, a shapeshifting global-Jazz group, on international and domestic stages for the past 14 years. »

PAN M 360 could chat with Ravish Momin, a couple of hours before his gig.

PAN M 360 : Has Sunken Cages been in Montreal before? 

Ravish Momin : No, this is my debut, first time in Montreal with my solar project. 

PAN M 360 : So, are you based in New York? Because the one I called is a New York number.

Ravish Momin :Yes, good eye! 100%. I am based in New York, but my partner lives in Philadelphia. So, it’s only two hours, so I go back and forth. Sometimes I’m in New York, sometimes I’m by city life. I’ve been in New York City for like 25 years, a long time. 

PAN M 360 : Oh yeah, well, we know about Sunken Cages for a while. You have a strong discography. Thank you. It’s a great blend of IDM, global groove, afrobeat, jazz and so on… many things are involved.

Ravish Momin :Yeah. Sure. So, yeah, Sunken Cages is really, for me, a combination of improvisation and global rhythms and also wanting to make dance music.

And for me, it was putting it all together. And so what I do now is I do a lot of live looping and I’m making up my rhythmic arrangements on the spot. But I’m also a composer, so I’ve also composed electronic melodies that I also have inside my software. And I’m using Ableton to use on stage. And I’m basically doing it all in real time.

And so there’s melodies, there’s rhythms. But for me, the main thing was to make music that has all the global rhythms, but also has an improvised dance music feel, you know? So that’s what I’m presenting in Montreal. And yeah, it’s very much about wanting people to not just sit there in their chair, but to get up and dance. 

PAN M 360 :And what is the setup? Are you coming with what kind of gear? 

Ravish Momin : It’s just me, it’s just me. And what is your gear? Yeah, my gear is basically, I have a brand new MIDI drum that was made by a company in Berlin in Germany. And then a drum pad and some MIDI controllers with Ableton. And that’s it. And so it’s very light. It’s very small. So it’s very easy to travel with this setup, you know? 

PAN M 360 : And this kind of live set, is it changing a lot from one gig to the other, even in the same tour? Do you vary the proposal?

Ravish Momin : No but…To answer your question, yes, it has changed in the past. So, for example, I started out actually putting drum triggers on a real drum set. Because I also played real drums, you know? Then it slowly evolved. And now I have this standing setup that I just described to you. So basically I already brought it with me on the plane. So I can’t really change it on the tour, you know? So usually when I’m already on the tour, it stays the same for Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto.

PAN M 360 : So it’s a sort of a Canadian tour you’re doing? 

Ravish Momin : Five dates, yeah.

PAN M 360 : Okay, cool!  Can you now just describe the last three years of your journey? Just to have an idea of the way it has evolved.

Ravish Momin : That’s a great question. Of course, I’ll keep it short. If you can imagine, for example, you’ve heard the discography. It’s not really global music. I don’t play instruments.

I’m not fully improvised music. And I’m also not really a jazz musician anymore – I have been a free  jazz drummer, that was a very big shift. A very big shift from playing free jazz to making electronic music., . But it’s equal parts of everything, right? 

So what happened for a long time, for the past three years, is really running against a lot of barriers. Like, oh, you go to a global music place, like world music. And they say, no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t really world music. Okay, then I go to an electronic place that does DJ culture. And then, no, no, no, no, you’re not really DJ. And then you go, you see the problem, right? 

PAN M 360 : Yeah, well, it’s a good problem for me.

Ravish Momin :  It’s a good problem, yeah. But you can also see how difficult it was last year.  You find, you know, a place, like a way to, like, you know, like make my career to make Sunken Cages music because then each place is saying, no, no, no. Then you feel really like, what am I doing? In New York it should be very easy to do Southern Cages but actually, it’s been not easy at all.  Because you go to electronic music places and they say no. The jazz places say no. The improvised places say no. The world music places say no. So I’ve mostly been on tour. For the past three years, my journey, since you asked to make it a simple answer, has been really trying to find my communities in other countries and other places.  I go to Europe a lot. I go to Mexico a lot. Just wherever they’re welcoming of what I do.

PAN M 360 : I understand that the change is permanent  in your music. You could do very different stuff next year!

Ravish Momin : Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I like to keep it open, you know, because I feel like, for me, it’s about the challenge of trying new things. Always, like, you know what happens, like most, like, if you become famous, okay, and become afraid to change, you know? And so for me, I’m like, hey who cares? It’s not about fame. I just want to make weird and interesting music. I don’t care the way it’s done.

Publicité panam

Alejandro Motta is a classically trained double bass player with a focus on instrumental contemporary music in the classical lineage, but he is also deeply interested in sound experimentation and improvisation, being the co-founder of the free improvisation ensemble Algo Cruje. He also played for national ensembles and orchestras, including the National  Autonomous University of Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra (OFUNAM). He is mainly involved in CEPROMUSIC Ensemble in contemporary music. Among other collaborations at the Suoni Alex Motta will play with DahL, Jairus Sharif, Adrian Avendaño, Adriana Camacho and Eli Piña on June 24 at Casa del Popolo. PAN M 360 reached him in Mexico before he flew to MTL.

PAN M 360 : So you are a bass player in contemporary music and you are in Montreal for a few concerts. So you’re from Mexico City ? 

Alejandro Motta : That’s right. Here I live in Mexico City, in Narvarte, a little bit near the center, but not quite there. Yeah, I’m flying to Montreal on  June 20th, early in the morning. And I’m returning to Mexico on the 29th. Cool.

PAN M 360 : Is it your first time in MTL? 

Alejandro Motta : No, it’s my second. Like other musicians from Mexico City, I was asked to come by Lisa Harris.  Yeah, I’m thrilled to be playing there with all these people. And also, you know, frankly, I like to surprise myself with the things that were planned for me to play with, you know?  Then it  generates a different energy from me, you know? 

PAN M 360 : And with whom are you playing in Mexico City, as a playermor more? 

Alejandro Motta : My main work in Mexico City is CEPROMUSIC Ensemble. It’s an ensemble only for contemporary music, the only ensemble of this type financed by the government. So we are professional academic musicians. And every two weeks we play new music from composers from here and from every part of the world, from the 1950’s to now. For example, we are actually playing Xenakis music. Yeah, that’s my main work. 

PAN M 360 : So you come from a classical background.

Alejandro Motta : Yes indeed, so I usually play with orchestras and other ensembles, musicals for example. I also collaborate with UNAM in Mexico City. But also, I’m quite active in the improvising scene here in Mexico. That changed my life and point of view of the music.  I have also played jazz and some gigs there in the United States. I don’t usually play jazz, but  I want to take it seriously. That’s my next step. 

Publicité panam


They’re from the Netherlands and come from the 1980s anarcho-punk scene. There are four of them: three guys on guitar—Terrie, Andy, and Arnold—and one girl, Katherine, on drums. No bass. Their music is as wild as it is explosive, and their shows are epic. They’re friends of the festival, but it’s been a while since they’ve been here. So this is the perfect opportunity to come out and dance, let loose, and have a blast—a particularly beneficial outlet in these vile times we’re going through, as Andy reminds us. 

He was kind enough to sit down for an interview and answer questions from PAN M 360. 

PAN M 360 :  Hi Andy, how was your day? (it was then 8 PM in Holland)

Andy Moor : It was good, I had a good day. I was busy actually, I have a project with Kaja Draksler who’s a Slovenian pianist. We’re releasing a record and we had to do some editing. So we were editing the record a bit over the phone.

She’s in Slovenia, I’m in Amsterdam but we’re making decisions and editing. 

PAN M 360 :  Will it be on Unsounds [the label he co-founded] or another label? 

Andy Moor :  No, it’s on a Hungarian label. It’s called Budapest Music or something [Budapest Music Center Records]. It’s a nice label and they give a lot of support. And it’s with the daughter of Terrie, she is singing in it. 

PAN M 360 :  Oh, it’s sort of a family project.

Andy Moor :  So I feel like I’ve been in The Ex long enough that I’m now playing with the other guitar player’s daughter. 

PAN M 360 :  You joined the band in 1990, can you tell us how it happened? 

Andy Moor :  It’s because I was in a band before that called Dog Faced Hermans and we were playing music mostly in Scotland and England.

We were based in Scotland and we knew about The Ex and we’d heard about them. And actually what happened is the singer of Chumbawamba at that time had a job doing driving bands. So he drove us around on a tour and he asked us: « Have you ever seen The Ex? » And we said: « No, we’ve never seen them live. We’ve heard their records. »  And he said: « Well, you have a very similar energy and way of playing music. »

So when we saw The Ex for the first time, it was really like, wow! It’s true! It felt really like our brothers or sisters across the ocean. Well, not ocean, more like across the channel, and it was great because then we did some tours together and then Marion, the singer of Dog Faced Hermans, wanted to take a year off to work in Poland. So I came over to Holland to play with The Ex for one year thinking it was a temporary thing. And it wasn’t. It became a permanent thing.

And Dog Faced Hermans also relocated in Amsterdam. So I was playing in both bands for a few years, which nearly killed me. 

PAN M 360 :  It nearly killed you? 

Andy Moor :  Well, it was a lot. Both bands wanted to play a lot and they were both very intense. So it was kind of double. But I was young enough to be able to deal with it. But I remember thinking I was playing like 250 concerts a year. I was really not resting at all.

So I got a bit fried. And then at some point Dog Faced Hermans stopped in 94 and then I continued with The Ex. 

PAN M 360 :  What is it with the Dutch that makes you so, I mean, because you didn’t go back to England, you stayed, you’ve been there for like 35 years. What is it with the Netherlands or the Dutch that you feel so at home? 

Andy Moor :  Well, it was because I was playing. 

I came over. Terry lived in the countryside in a really big villa that they’d squatted and he offered a place for me to stay there. So I had a place to stay. I had a band to play in, my favourite band. I couldn’t really complain, could I? And that just continued.

I stayed in that house for about nine years and played with The Ex there. And then I moved in to Amsterdam. And then for me, it was, you know, the music, I guess you follow where the music goes.

Some people follow the money. Some people follow their art. Some people follow someone that they’re in love with. But I was really following the music. And the life I had here, it was just better than what I was living in Scotland, for sure. Financially, it was the same thing.

We live very simply. We don’t have lots of money or anything, but more to do with, there was a very practical sort of hardworking approach here. And it worked. It was really working. We were playing a lot. 

PAN M 360 :  And what was the sort of ambiance, the atmosphere in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands in the early 90s? How was it? 

Andy Moor :  It was kind of post, the back end of the squat scene.The squat scene was really wild in the 80s. By the time I moved here, there was still a lot of squats, but it had settled down and there were many all over the country. And so if you were involved in that scene, you know, there was a network of places you could go to eat, to drink and to live.

There were also a lot of young people who wanted to play music and didn’t have much money. And there were enough squats around that people could live really low rent or rent free. That’s really not the case now.

The city’s a very different thing now. As you might have guessed, with a lot of cities, especially European cities, it’s incredibly expensive to live here now. So for young people just starting out, it’s really tough.

But at that time, there was really a network and I still live in a building that comes from that, from that squat scene from the mid 80s. And it became legalised. So that atmosphere was still there when I first came, and slowly, it was eaten away by sort of progressive governments being more and more right wing and less tolerant of this kind of thing, to the point where it’s a very small sort of number of squats still in the city and a very small underground scene here.

But it’s still alive and people are still doing great things. And people, you know, a lot of people are involved in it. So we’re still part of it in a way.

So that’s great. 

PAN M 360 :  Going back to your early days, what were the first musical epiphanies you experienced when you were a kid or in your teens, that sort of got you on the road to music?

Andy Moor :  My mom was an opera singer. She used to sing in London. She trained with the London Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Bernstein. She used to go two or three times a week into town and come back. And she was always really full of energy and very happy when she came back from these rehearsals.

And I always really noticed that, that I thought this is what she really, really wants to do. She loved it. So that was probably one of the first things. So she was always singing in the house, practising and playing the piano. And there was always music in my house. So I think that was really one of the first things that I, that was a very normal thing, a normal environmental thing in my house.

And then, what happened next? There was a piano in the house. So I was always playing the piano. I wasn’t just hitting it. I couldn’t read music. I never bothered to learn to read music. And then when I got older, she was playing guitar as well. And she decided to become an acupuncturist. And you have to have very, very sensitive fingers when you do acupuncture. So she had to stop because you have to read people’s pulses. So she gave it to me. And then I just started for about two years. I just played the guitar sitting on the end of my bed, just strumming chords and you know, every day just strumming along to Led Zeppelin records. And then from that, yeah, it just grew.

I just realised that that’s what I wanted. But I went to university still to study. But as soon as I went to university, I was looking for a band to play with. So it was clear that was the direction. So I didn’t really even finish university. I stopped after a couple of years and started playing with the band Dog Faced Hermans, which that was a big epiphany because the musicians in that band, I learned a lot from them. They turned me on to lots of African music, and jazz and free jazz also. A lot of stuff. 

PAN M 360 :  Do you remember the first concert you attended? 

Andy Moor :  Attended to see or to play?

PAN M 360 :  Attended to see, not as a performer.

Andy Moor :  I think it was Thin Lizzy (he laughs). Yeah. I don’t remember exactly when, but I remember seeing Thin Lizzy.

PAN M 360 :  Anything else worth mentioning?

Andy Moor :  Well, there was a period where there was a venue in Edinburgh called The Queen’s Hall. And a lot of jazz musicians from all over the world would play in this venue. It’s quite a small place and quite low key.

But I saw Don Cherry in there. I saw the Art Ensemble of Chicago in there. I saw amazing free jazz from that period. It was like the 80s, early 80s. And it was stuff that I really didn’t know. And at first, I really wondered, what the hell is this? But I really felt that it had something to it. And it was more my problem that I didn’t really understand. And the more I listened to it, the more I got into it. And then I also was listening to a lot of guitar bands that would come, but more kind of not so much punk, more post-punk-like stuff influenced by the Gang of Four and Captain Beefheart.

There were a lot of young bands coming out of England that were playing in all the pubs in Edinburgh, because I was living in Edinburgh. So I saw this whole scene of bands from Manchester, but really unknown ones, not the kind of really spiky, angular guitar music. There was a band called Big Flame and another band called Bog-Shed.

And these bands really had an impact on me and the rest of the band. We were really influenced by them. 

And then we saw The Ex that also had a big, for me, that was quite an epiphany, seeing The Ex for the first time, before I knew them as people, because I really loved their commitment. I could see that they weren’t trying to play perfect virtuoso in music, but they did it with such a commitment and such an energy that it came across, and it was just rhythmically fantastic. 

And Sonic Youth. I think Sonic Youth and The Ex had a very big impact on me the first time I saw them. 

PAN M 360 :  So how did you fit in the band in the very first few months? Did it take a while or it was very natural? 

Andy Moor :  It felt very natural because the way The Ex rehearsed was really the same as the way Dog Faced Hermans used to rehearse.

We would go into the rehearsal space, nobody wrote anything down. We would play together, improvise quite a lot, bounce off each other’s ideas and record things on a cassette machine. And then it became a mini disc.

And then we would just listen back and keep the good bits and throw out the bad bits. Very simple way of making music, but it worked. And The Ex did the same thing. So I felt really comfortable in that sense when I started rehearsing. 

PAN M 360 :  So I imagine that modus operandi hasn’t changed much over the years, that you’re still doing the same thing. 

Andy Moor :  Yeah, we’re doing exactly the same thing.

Nobody really knows what’s going to come out.

PAN M 360 :  Since Terry and you have a very unconventional way of approaching the guitar, how do you sort of build your songs? 

Andy Moor : Exactly how I just explained it. It usually comes from either a rhythm or one guitar idea, and then we just bounce off each other.

And sometimes you don’t really figure out exactly what you’re doing until you’re playing live. And then you can really change things because you realise what you chose to do doesn’t really work. And so it’s really important that after you’ve rehearsed, we rehearse for like two or three months, and then we go out and we play for a bit.

And then we go back in the rehearsal room and we adjust things. And that second period of rehearsal is really important because it’s really the moment where we’re really learning how to play the songs. And we’re also getting rid of the fat and also understanding how the dynamic works.

And we also remember how the audience reacted to things that really affects it as well. So we build it up and then we usually adjust it maybe two or three times. And then we have a set and then we play it for a year or so, and then we record it. So we always record afterwards. 

PAN M 360 :  So you did that for the record that you put out last year? You mean that you live with a song for a whole year before recording it? 

Andy Moore : At least.

So that record’s a year old, but actually the music’s two years and a bit old. So we’re almost ready to make a new set because we’ve been playing that for a while now. So the audience always kind of hears things that they haven’t heard before.

They’re a bit behind us, but we like it that way. So it’s quite a challenge for them as well. Because we’re not going to play the songs that they know.

We tend to play new material. And I think we have to do that because if we record the songs first, we can’t play them yet. So they don’t sound good.

I think you have to really, it’s not only to do with the technical aspect of how you play, but it’s the sound. It takes a while for all the sounds to lock, where you choose where you leave space and where you add dynamic. And that takes time.

You can only do that after you play live. It’s like the live is really the big learning curve, where we understand what’s really happening. 

PAN M 360 :  It’s the ultimate reality check.

Andy Moore : Yes. 

PAN M 360 : What kind of schedule has the band these days? Is it like you play mostly in the summertime for festivals and stuff and you have a little more time on your hands in the winter, how does it work?

Andy Moore :  No, actually, with the exception of these Canadian gigs [Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, June 24, 25 and 26], we don’t play so much in the summer and we don’t play festivals so much in the summer. We’re not really a summer festival band. We tend to play more in the autumn and the spring and the winter and we play a lot. We play about 35 gigs a year now. We used to play 70 or 80, sometimes 90, but now some of us have children and we’re getting a bit older, so we reduced it to 30 to 35 a year.

It’s mostly in Europe and sometimes we used to go to the States quite a bit, but I don’t think we’re going to do that for the foreseeable future, but we definitely like to come to Canada. We love this festival in Montreal. We’ve been to it a few times before, also with different projects.

We came also with our Ethiopian project with Getachew Mekuria. It was fantastic. It’s a great festival. I really love it.

PAN M 360 : Yeah, you’ve been here a few times already for that festival. 

Andy Moore :  Yeah, and it’s so nice. It’s all in the same street, so you just go back and forth between the two venues. Getachew Mekuria, who was like 80 at the time, he was so happy because he found an armchair in the Casa del Popolo and he just stayed in that armchair for five days. We just went back and forth between the two venues and he just sat there kind of holding court. It was really nice. 

PAN M 360 : You’ve also become more adept at doing photographs. For the past few years, we’ve seen more and more of your pictures adorning various record sleeves, even sleeves that are not from Unsounds. So, are you spending more and more time doing photography these days? 

Andy Moore :  I was up until about two, three years ago. Then I’ve had a dry period. I think I’m just really busy because my boys – I have an eight-year-old son and a 12-year-old son – I’m just busy with them. I play music, I rehearse, and I spend the rest of the time with the boys. I just haven’t got time to really focus on the photography, but it’s there and I love it.

I also had a solo set where I had photos that I would project while I was playing the solo set. I have those, so I can do that from time to time, but I need to get back into it. The last three or four years, the boys are really at this age where I just want to spend as much time as I can with them because I know they’re going to, quite soon, one of them is going to be a teenager. He’s already almost a teenager. The other one’s eight, so it’s a really crucial period. I have to choose to put something to the side and I put the photography to the side. But maybe later when my ears are completely fried, I can go back to the photography. 

PAN M 360 : You really have a keen eye, so it would be good for us to see more of it.

By way of conclusion, do you have any message for the fans that are going to be attending the concert next week? 

Andy Moore :  Well, I hope they dance. Because what we play is basically dance music. It’s loud, but it’s very rhythmic and it’s very danceable. So I hope people feel like dancing, especially in these really, really tough times at the moment, probably less in Canada than in America. And we can’t go to the States at the moment. It just doesn’t work.

And we want to because we have an audience there and I feel like we should go there and play for them because I think more than ever they need to get this kind of cathartic energy out because the situation is so vile there. And so I’m really happy when people… 

Recently we played in a festival in England called Acid Horse and the audience was dancing like mad. It was a really special evening and they really made it themselves. It wasn’t like we pushed them or anything. They were there to sort of just get their energy out and they did and it was fantastic. And I’m really happy when when the audience does that.

It just has a chance to really… And I feel like they’re more connected to us when they do that and we can play the songs a bit longer or they dance like that because we also get energy from that when they’re moving. It’s quite strange if you play with our energy and the audience is sitting in chairs watching you. That doesn’t really… 

PAN M 360 : Well, it’s pretty hard to stay still when you’re at a concert of The Ex. I remember the whole Sala Rossa erupting the last few times. It was just so amazing. I mean you had the impression that the roof was going to blow off. 

So let’s hope you will be in the same sort of spirit next week. 

Andy Moore :  For sure.

And we love that place the Sala Rossa. Also the Spanish 

restaurant. I don’t know if it’s still going but we love it.

PAN M 360 : The one on the floor below? It’s still there. 

Andy Moore :  And it is going to be great to hang out with Kiva again. She’s fantastic. She’s been really helping us with every kind of… It’s been quite a complicated thing also because of the World Cup football with flights and accommodation and everything.But she’s been unbelievably helpful. It’s really fantastic. She’s really there.

She’s really present for us. So that’s great.

PAN M 360 : Well, we’re really looking forward to seeing you again with The Ex and also with Yannis Kyriakides and the Bozzini Quartet the day before. So we’ll get to see and hear you twice. 

Andy Moore :  Yeah. That’s going to be great with the Bozzinis.

They’re also fantastic, the Bozzini Quartet. The level of their playing is just remarkable. I always feel a little bit like I’m out of my league when I play with them. But we just come from such different… we’re approaching the music from such different points that it works. It’s like I do the thing that I do and they do the thing that they do. And somehow Yannis kind of glues it together. And it works so well. It’s really a pleasure to play with them. 

PAN M 360 : It converges. That’s fine. 

Andy Moore :  Yes, converges. That’s a good word for it.

PAN M 360 : Well, on that word, thank you very much, Andy, for taking the time to speak with us and see you next week. Bye-bye and have a nice evening.

Publicité panam

Adrian Avendaño  is a percussionist, improviser and composer from the Vancouver area, he’s spending a few days at the Suoni Per Il Popolo as an artist in residence. He is involved in many Suoni’s programs this week, and PAN M 360 could talk to him before his journey actually happens.

About this Trading Places path, here are the words from the Suoni:

« Forget what you know about stiff residencies. Un Échange: Trading Places: Trueque is an electrified, cross-border musical adventure that has been shaking up the scenes of Montreal and Vancouver since 2016. Imagine the most badass improv and experimental music communities from Montréal, Vancouver, and now for the first time this year, the sonic wonderland of Mexico City deciding to pack their bags, swap cities, and make some beautiful noise together. The minds behind the magic, the NOW Society, Suoni Per Il Popolo, and a crew of visionary curators in CDMX, are teaming up to create the ultimate playground for adventurous musicians. It’s all about forming deep, new connections, trading ideas through sound, and proving that the language of experimental music is the most fun and present dialect you’ll ever learn. Un Échange: Trading Places: Trueque is however. »

TRADING PLACES: INFOS HERE

PAN M 360 : You’re an artist in residence this time in Montreal, so you’re coming very soon for a few concerts, you’re involved in different programs. So, can you, could you describe your role as an artist in residence this time at the Suonio Per Il Popolo?

Adrian Avendaño : Yes, absolutely. So yeah, this year I’ve been invited to be one of the artists visiting from Vancouver for Trading Places. Trading Places is the collaboration between Suoni and Now Society here in Vancouver. Now Society is a non-profit organization here in Vancouver that’s dedicated to improvised music. And so, Now Society has been operating for over 30 years. It’s been a very long time, and they’ve had a really important role in Vancouver promoting improvised music and experimental music. And so, my role being part of the Suoni is more or less being a collaborator in improvised music.

So, I’ll be playing all the shows that I’ll be playing will be improvised music with musicians that I have collaborated with in different contexts over the years. And also some that I will meet for the very first time and will be collaborating, you know. And so, this is something that’s really exciting for me because as an improviser, getting to know people on the bandstand, so to speak, is, I think, for me, one of the most fulfilling things about this art form.

I don’t know if there’s other ways in which people come together in this way, at least, you know, especially working with people that have had such an important trajectory in the music that they do, whether it’s improvised or, say, other styles. And so, I think being able to meet these folks and make music with, you know, the vocabulary that we all have and creating in the moment is something that I think is truly special. So, I’m really honored to have the opportunity to get to know these folks and to actually re-encounter people that, you know, I’ve collaborated with in the past.

PAN M 360 : Yeah! And when you talk about free improvisation, well, can you just be more specific in the programs or the events you’ll be involved in in Montreal?

Adrian Avendaño :  So, coming up on the 18th of June, I will be playing alongside Roxanne Nesbitt, who actually is a former Vancouver resident for many years and has since relocated to Montreal. Yeah. And she’s an incredible artist who is a composer in her own right as well, but a big part of her practice these days is making her own percussion instruments and making them from ceramics and from metal. And she’s also a double bassist. So, yeah, that’s going to be one-third of the trio, and then the next person is a Montreal artist who I haven’t met yet. And so, I’m really excited to be collaborating with them in this trio set that we have.

PAN M 360 : The next program involving you is on the 20th of June, and let’s go on for the next program.

Adrian Avendaño : Yes, I’ll be part of one of the constellations as they’re calling it for an event presented via Black Door, which is an improvised music series that Jason, who is based in Montreal, who is actually one of the other guests for the Trading Places residency this year. And so, this is a series that he’s been curating that is featuring artists in the Montreal area to get together to celebrate one another through improvisation. And so, yeah, I’ll be playing in the first constellation that night with a bunch of folks from Montreal, including, I believe, James Goddard and Fahmid Nibesh, who I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with in Mexico City.

And then Fahmid was one of the Trading Places artists in residence last year. And so, he was here with, playing alongside Allison Burik (saxophone and clarinet), who, I guess, will be playing with her, with them, rather, on the following gig on the 23rd. And so, yeah, this is going to be a really exciting event because there’s going to be lots of really amazing musicians on the bill.

And so, moving forward, as just mentioned, on the 23rd, I will be playing in the Get Free! Improv Night. So, this is one I’m really, really, really excited for this because I’ll be collaborating with Allison Burik, as previously mentioned, with Jared Sharif, who is an incredible saxophonist based in Calgary, here on the West Coast. And then we’ll be joined by the incredible Luke Stewart from Philadelphia and, I guess, I think New York-based now, but anyway, who’s a huge part of the band Irreversible Entanglements, which I’m a huge fan of.

And so, it’s an honor to be able to play with these folks all together. And I’m not sure if it’s confirmed, but I’ve had some information that isn’t so consistent, but potentially Andy Moor from The Ex will be joining us that evening in that configuration. So, whether that happens or not, it’ll be amazing.

And then on the 24th, I’ll be playing with the Trading Places artists who are visiting from Mexico City. So, this year, it’s a really special year for the Trading Places residency. And this is because there’s a new hub, I guess, a new place that has been introduced into the exchange.

And that is Mexico City. And so, in this quartet on the 24th, I’ll be playing with Alejandro Motta and Elia Perez, who are representing Mexico City. And alongside their comrades, Eli Pina on saxophone and Eliana Camacho on double bass. So, these folks are definitely part of that crew as well. And I think they will have a heavy hand in what happens with Trading Places next year for Mexico City. So, it’s a bit of a sneak peek, I guess, of what’s to come.

But I’m really, really excited for this quartet.

PAN M 360 : Now let’s talk about your own background as a percussion player, improviser and composer.

Adrian Avendaño : So, I basically came up playing the drums kind of by accident, to be honest. But a very happy accident. And I’m really grateful for it. I obviously have to thank my parents, specifically my mom, who was really encouraging when I was young for me to try different things.

And one of those things was to try to learn music. And so when I was about 12, she was just like, hey, Adrian, you want to check out this music school that’s close to our house? I know maybe it’s something of interest to you. And I’m like, oh, yeah, sure. I was pretty open minded. So we went. And at the bottom of the list of all the lessons you could take were drums.

And so I was like, oh, I don’t know why they kind of, you know, they kind of struck me. And so I was I picked the drums and I had a few lessons with my teacher. And that was kind of it.

You know, I just kept going. I started playing in elementary school and all the bands. And when I was in high school, same thing. I was in the orchestral band. I was in the jazz bands in high school as well. And I was kind of lucky that I guess in middle high school, I’m not sure how it works out in Montreal, but here there’s like grade 10.

So it’s kind of like, you know, the last year before you become a senior in high school. And so at that point in time, there weren’t any other drummers in the older grades. And so essentially, I was doing double duty.

So I was playing with the junior bands, the orchestral band and the jazz band. And I was doing the same with the senior kids, jazz band and orchestral band. And so I was basically playing every day in my school, which has been incredible for me, as I was just, you know, learning so much and getting to know music from, you know, different eras and different contexts.

And then I eventually, you know, graduated and actually didn’t study music after high school until many years later. I kind of took a different path, but I came back to it maybe in 2017. And I started studying at the Vancouver Community College here, which was instrumental to kind of where I am now, because this is where I’ve been able to engage actually more thoroughly with experimental music, contemporary music, a little bit of jazz.

I wouldn’t say I studied, you know, that in such a thorough way, maybe to like say other musicians may have been. It’s definitely part of my background, but I wouldn’t say it’s the foundation, if that makes any sense. But this was a really fertile, you know, time for me because I was exposed to the different methodologies of experimental music, contemporary music, and specifically improvised music.

And so this is huge thanks to my mentors there. One in particular,  Giorgio Manganelli  , who is an incredible artist, still doing lots of stuff today and, yeah, really opened up our minds in the new music ensemble that he led. And also importantly for me, as a percussionist, it opened my ears to gamelan music.

So yeah, that’s a bit of my trajectory there in terms of like, kind of like my education and kind of thing to note, which is recent. So in 2024, I was really fortunate to receive a professional development grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, which has enabled me to study with one of my heroes of percussion music today. He’s a drummer named Pedro Ojeda from Bogota, Colombia. He’s kind of at the forefront of the new cumbia scene and experimental music in his city in Bogota, in Colombia. And so I had the huge honor to go to learn with him in person for about a month. And I’ve been studying with him for many years over the internet and just getting, you know, trying to connect as thoroughly as I can with, you know, my Latin American heritage.

And I’ve been really lucky that, you know, Vancouver, even though it’s, you know, it’s maybe a smaller city, there’s still lots of like, you know, really amazing people doing music here. And honestly, it’s been kind of incredible, especially in the last six years, the amount of people passing through to Vancouver, like from all over the world, you know, top musicians who are presenting their projects or presenting their solo works. And so I’ve been really lucky to be here as people are just kind of coming through here and getting to meet them and connect with them.

Publicité panam

Artist in residence at the Suoni 2026 where she will be involved in 5 different events from June 16. Living in Vancouver, Anju Singh is a composer, sound artist, and multi-instrumentalist. Violin, pipe organ and electronics are among her improvising and composing tools, she also blends western old or new music with her South Asian background.
“She explores dynamics, texture, and pure sound in her compositions and improvisations. As a musician, she is interested in extended and experimental techniques, as well as the repurposing of traditional instruments in new contexts. This sometimes leads her to design and build her own instruments, inspired by existing ones. Her preferred materials include musical instruments, synthesizers, the voice, electronics, found or custom-made objects, samples, and field recordings. Anju has presented her work in Canada and internationally, notably in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Europe, and Japan. In addition to her musical and sound practice in the fields of improvisation, experimental music, and sound art, Anju also performs under the name The Nausea and is a drummer and guitarist in various metal projects. She is the curator and director of the Vancouver Noise Fest, an independent, self-funded festival dedicated to noise music, now in its 11th year.”

Publicité panam

Kiva Stimac is the co-founder of Suoni per il Popolo and currently serves as its artistic director. Suoni brings us a wide variety of experimental artists, ranging from veterans like The Ex to up-and-comers like JamBient. Kiva’s insights are a must-read for anyone planning to attend Suoni from June 16 through 28!

Kiva Stimac est la cofondatrice de Suoni per il Popolo et en est actuellement la directrice artistique. Suoni nous propose une grande diversité d’artistes expérimentaux, allant de figures de longue date comme The Ex à des artistes émergents comme JamBient. Les conseils de Kiva sont incontournables pour tous ceux qui prévoient d’assister à Suoni du 16 au 28 juin !

Publicité panam

The Montreal Baroque Festival 2026 once again announces the arrival of summer with its edition taking place from June 18 to 21. As usual, there will be discoveries, reliable favourites, and renowned artists from local, national, and international stages. The starting point of this edition is an opera-ballet presented for the first time in North America: Le Triomphe des Sens, by Jean-Joseph Mouret (1682-1738), an overlooked composer but one who enjoyed considerable popularity in his time. From there, the Festival has concocted a program that will combine plenty of beautiful and good music with tasting, visual, and even tactile experiences. We speak about all this with Co-Artistic and General Director, Vincent Lauzer.

INFO AND TICKETS

https://youtu.be/yV6kF1NDzSw

After only two years of classical guitar, the young musician Tommy Dupuis realised that he was destined for this instrument rather than the electric guitar he had been practicing for much longer. At the Classica Festival 2026, on Sunday, June 14, the young man will present his concert THE MANY SOUNDS OF THE GUITAR: from Bach to the present day during which he hopes to showcase everything his instrument is capable of. A program that ranges from Bach to African Sketches, tunes inspired by the Balkans, Albéniz, the music of a young Quebec composer, and many others. I met with Tommy Dupuis to talk about his budding career and his musical program.

INFO AND TICKETS FOR TOMMY DUPUIS’ CONCERT

https://youtu.be/Ph_l0-BZadA

We are quite familiar with the role of Jeunesses Musicales Canada (JMC) in supporting and developing the careers of young Canadian artists. We sometimes forget that the JMC hall, or Joseph-Rouleau Hall, located in the heart of Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal, offers a season of concerts of all types (Happy hours, youth, families, etc.) throughout the year. I had the chance to discuss with the General and Artistic Director Danièle LeBlanc, about the 2026-2027 season of the small, but incredibly charming concert hall.

PANM360: The mission of Jeunesses Musicales Canada is to support young artists. What part does the programming of concerts in the Joseph-Rouleau hall play in this?

Danièle LeBlanc: Our mission is divided into two parts: Supporting the career development of young artists, yes, but also Promoting musical activities for preschool and primary school audiences (and we add concerts for adult audiences).

PANM360: So a season of programming at the Joseph-Rouleau hall, it’s all this.

Danièle LeBlanc: Yes, that’s what we try to reflect in our small 100-seat theatre. We welcome school outings. We also have concerts for families, offered once a month, on Sundays.

We also offer a series of concerts that allow us to provide young artists with opportunities to showcase their talent in a professional context. Every year, we offer a residency to an artist. This is realised through free access to our venue, followed by the production and presentation of three concerts throughout the year, according to their schedule.

In addition, there is a guest concert, ideally by a JMC artist or a former JMC artist. And of course, all our concerts that go on tour also have the opportunity to be held in Montreal in our venue.

PANM360: What do we take away from the 26-27 season?

Danièle LeBlanc: We can notice the name Krystina Marcoux, marimbist. She will be our artist in residence for the year. She will handle the programming, artist booking, etc. for the organization of three concerts. She is a very dynamic and bold artist. We have known her since 2019 because she was a JMC artist.

On October 15th, she will present her first concert as part of our Happy Hour series, which starts at 6 PM with the aperitif, the concert at 7 PM, and everything ends at 8 PM so that people can go finish the evening at a restaurant (there are plenty in the area).

Her concert is called Dance, Rhythm, and Fire. There will be Stravinsky, Gershwin, Saint-Saëns. She will be performing in a duo with the violinist Chloé Dumoulin, another excellent young artist of the next generation.

PANM360: Violin and marimba, it’s very surprising and refreshing. One recognises the originality of Krystina Marcoux.

Danièle LeBlanc: Ah yes, absolutely. Her second concert, Timeless Trilogy, will take place on January 28, 2027. She will be in a duo with another marimbist, Conrado Moya, who plays a lot in Europe. He will be passing through here and will take the opportunity to explore all kinds of repertoires with Krystina, including Bach and Ravel in unique arrangements.

INFO AND TICKETS FOR THE THREE CONCERTS WITH KRYSTINA MARCOUX

PANM360: If there is a percussionist capable of making the Baroque sing as much as Impressionism or crossover, it is her.

Danièle LeBlanc: I have an anecdote about that. During her first audition for the JMC, she had played Bach, precisely. I don’t remember exactly what. But I remember a judge who told me backstage, “It’s the best Bach I’ve ever heard in my life.” Krystina on a marimba, that’s it.

Finally, her residency will end with Embrassing the Ephemeral on March 17 2027, in a marimba-voice duo. Something else that is extremely rare! She will be with soprano Caroline Gélinas to play Mahler, Falla, and Bach, again. I think it will be a very, very beautiful residency.

PANM360: So, there are three Happy Hour concerts, but they are not the only ones?

Danièle LeBlanc: No, of course not. These are only the three scheduled and set up by our artist in residence. There are several others throughout the year. In this series of Happy Hours, there is also a guest concert and three other concerts by emerging artists chosen by the JMC to tour Canada.

The guest will be Pierre Rancourt, a well-known opera singer. He will accompany himself this time on guitar and with foot-tapping in a tribute to Québécois chanson Great Félix Leclerc. An instrumental trio will be with him. The emerging artists who will complete the series will be the viola-piano duo of Wilhelm Magner and Elizabeth Pion (whose career is progressing very well!); the Duo CordaVox (Bruno Gauthier-Bellerose on guitar and Lucie St-Martin, soprano) in a program inspired by folk songs according to Ravel, Britten, Rodrigo; and then the Passamano Ensemble, a piano-cello-flute trio that will explore tango.

INFO AND TICKETS FOR THE HAPPY HOUR CONCERT SERIES 

PANM360: Pierre Rancourt, excellent lyrical singer, in a traditional/song format, it’s very intriguing.

Danièle LeBlanc: What I find inspiring about this project is that it comes from his work in welcome classes for newcomers. He developed an approach that conveys to immigrants an image of Quebec and its inhabitants. What does it mean to live in Quebec, what does it mean to be Quebecois. He reprises Félix, but also arranges it. Sometimes, there are Arab-tinged sounds, for example. It’s a true intercultural adventure, and a generous and touching sharing. He was inspired by that and is giving us a very beautiful concert.

PANM360: There is also Ma Belle Opérette (My Beautiful Operetta). What is it?

Danièle LeBlanc: That’s very original and exciting. It’s a special show, which will take place at the Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, because it’s too grand to fit in our small hall. My beautiful operetta is actually a compilation of well-known and lesser-known operetta and lyric comedy arias, scripted by Pascal Blanchet, a fine connoisseur of this repertoire. He imagined a fictional situation, in Montreal in the 40s-50s, in which producers are putting on a show. Through the various situations, all sorts of melodies will be heard, including some from Lionel Daunais and Charles Goulet, of course. There will be all sorts of likeable characters, a critic, a French diva, etc.

INFO AND DETAILS FOR MA BELLE OPÉRETTE (MY BEAUTIFUL OPERETTA)

PANM360: Your other target audience is children and families…

Danièle LeBlanc: Yes, it still works very well. We have several productions that are running and coming back.

PANM360: Like Annabelle Canto...

Danièle LeBlanc: In truth, Annabelle will be a new production adapted with artists from New Brunswick. This province is a very important partner in the JMC network.

We have classics that are always popular, The Halloween Ball, The Forest of Music Lovers, The Grand Christmas Ball, etc. Some have been with us for about twenty years, like The Grand Christmas Ball! I like to think that we have had an impact on young artists who have been able to develop their project and give it a long life.

There is also a guest concert in this series. This year, it will be Il était une flûte (Once Upon a flute) with Aurélie Morgan. She presents a dozen flutes of all kinds and from all countries.

INFO AND TICKETS FOR THE FAMILY CONCERTINOS SERIES

PANM360: It’s very family-oriented. Not just in terms of programming, but in terms of the JMC community…

Danièle LeBlanc: Yes. It’s true that all organisations want to create this kind of belonging. I don’t think we’re different from others in that sense. You know, the Montreal Symphony, the Opéra de Montréal, everyone wants to create a family around them, a community that believes in it and will move forward (both the patrons, the artists, the employees, the volunteers, and the music-loving public). However, JMC is an organization specifically focused on young people, most of whom are not yet known, and that is unique. I think that JMC is an important organization in the ecosystem, relevant for young artists and for young children who want to discover music.

PANM360: Sometimes it seems that the Joseph-Rouleau hall is still not well known to concertgoers, and even to the residents of the Plateau.

Danièle LeBlanc: In what you are saying, certain factors need to be taken into account. First of all, the building itself is a significant architectural witness. You can’t do whatever you want with the facade. If you look at the top of the building, it says Clinique Laurier. It’s historic. So there is a challenge, we can’t dismantle the facade as we would like to show people that we have a room.

We are also located between the Conservatory and the Maison de la culture du Plateau Mont-Royal, they are direct competitors, we need to stand out.

PANM360: Is the room being used to its full capacity?

Danièle LeBlanc: No, but it is used at high capacity. Between our scheduled concerts, our external rentals, our internal use for our own activities, our own rehearsals, I dare to say that it is occupied 60% of the time by external, internal, or rental projects. We could always seek more rentals, we could always position ourselves differently within the ecosystem, that’s a consideration to be made. We will actually start designing our future strategic plan soon. These are reflections we will have. But you’re right: we have the challenge of standing out, of emerging from this kind of jewel in a case, hidden in a box, itself in a drawer.

PANM360: Thank you, and have a wonderful 26-27 season! Thank you, and a very beautiful 26-27 season!

Danièle LeBlanc: Thank you! 

American cellist John-Henry Crawford will be coming to Montreal for a chamber music concert dedicated to the great Piatigorsky, on June 11 at Bourgie Hall. We caught up with him to talk about the concert and his career.

PANM360: You are a recognized musician, what place does chamber music occupy in your career? 

JHC: Chamber music is special because the same piece, played with different people, can acquire new light. The magic of chamber music is precisely this unity of voices put together, this fusion of many voices into one. 

PANM360: How do you feel about playing in Montreal, a city of great importance in the international classical music scene?

JHC: This is the first time in the city for me, and I am very excited about it. I am happy to be able to share music with excellent local musicians, and in a city where culture is deeply present in the lives of citizens.

PANM360: What is the relationship between Piatigorsky, to whom the concert is dedicated, and the program you will present at the Salle Bourgie?

JHC: It’s more of a relationship in terms of repertoire and artists. In particular, we will play a piece written by Piatigorsky himself, the Paganini Variations, each dedicated to a different friend, and we are talking about the most important musicians of the last century.

PANM360: In closing, as your career is on the rise, what are the projects you want to share with us?

 JHC: In the near future I will continue to travel and play and I would also like to start a festival in Louisiana. As for recording projects, an EP with transcriptions of Ravel for cello has just been released to which I am very attached.

Publicité panam

The Canadian trumpeter Jens Lindemann is a virtuoso to whom few challenges are daunting. The former member of the famous Canadian Brass plays everything, because labels matter little to him. On June 12, 2026, he will be at the Bourgie Hall for the concert The World According to Sinatra, Ellington, and Gershwin, scheduled by the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. For the occasion, he will be accompanied by a big band made up of seasoned Montreal musicians. I met the friendly musician. We talked about music, of course, but also about the 32 trumpets lost in the destruction of his house during the California fires in 2025, the most difficult pieces he has ever played, and the fact that he came very close to never playing music (thanks to his mother who forced him to persevere).

THE CONCERT IS SOLD OUT

Artists:

Matt Catingub, artistic director, piano and vocals

Ian Parker, solo piano 

Jens Lindemann, solo trumpet

The Festival Big Band – 

Jean-Pierre Zanella, alto sax I – 

Jennifer Bell, alto sax II – 

Yves Adam, baritone sax – 

André Leroux, tenor sax – 

Jocelyne Couture, trumpet I – 

Bill Maher, trumpet II – 

Aron Doyle, trumpet III – 

Dave Grott, trombone I – 

Taylor Donaldson, trombone II – 

Éric Lagacé, bass – 

Steve Moretti, drums

Cellist and member of the Barbican Quartet, Yoanna Prodanova returns to one of her musical homes by appearing in five performances at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, which runs from June 9 to 21, primarily at Salle Bourgie. A native of Bulgaria, Yoanna Prodanova immigrated to Canada with her family, where she lived primarily in Montreal. She trained as a cellist in Montreal, studying notably with Denis Brott. For the past 14 years, she has lived in the United Kingdom, where she founded the Barbican Quartet with fellow students. PAN M 360 presents this conversation with Yoanna Prodanova and Alain Brunet.

VISIONNEZ CETTE INTERVIEW !

Publicité panam

Subscribe to our newsletter

Inscription
Infolettre

"*" indicates required fields

Type of Suscribers